A Cabinet report has been signed off, which clarifies the restriction on installing dropped kerbs in front of houses where the front gardens are not deep enough to allow parking at right angles to the house. This mainly affects the inner city parts of Birmingham. See http://www.martinmullaney.co.uk/images-transport/footway-crossings-2006-august.pdf

Where residents intend to park at right angles to the property - footway crossings will only be installed if the front garden is 4.75metres deep.

Where residents intend to park parallel to the frontage of the property - footway crossings will only be installed if they can demonstrate that they can do this by using a crossing directly in front of their house (it is calculated that the house will need to be 12metres wide to achieve this). If they can do this, then the minimum depth of garden required may be reduced to 2.5metres deep.

The report shows that there have been problems in the past where dropped kerbs have been installed for the provision of parallel parking, namely:
1) the resident does not park exactly parallel to the property resulting in a vehicle overhang obstructing the pavement.
2) the resident says they will use a neighbours paved front garden to assist in parking parallel, but instead drives along the pavement when the neighbour has a car parked in the space.